Taipei -- An eyeful!

We went to Taipei over the weekend to see the National Palace Museum which houses most of China’s great art over the centuries. Luckily Chang Kai Shek took all of China’s treasures with the retreating KMT or they would have later suffered the fate of most art during the Cultural Revolution – total destruction. The grounds of the museum are beautiful and we wandered around pottery, jade, seals, manuscripts, amazing carved date pits -- it went on and on. Our only disappointment was that the painting and scroll wings of the museum were closed for renovation – I had remembered those from when I visited with my parents when I was 15!.

There’s always a major temple to visit and Taipei is no exception. Except it was clear that Longsham Temple was actually used by the people and not a sterile tourist attraction like many of the temples seem to be in China. The temple is Buddhist, dedicated to Guanyin, the Buddhist representation of compassion, but folk religion is also apparent. No one gets married or names their son or daughter without consulting a fortune teller here first.

We dipped into Chinese Opera at the Taipei Eye and were pleasantly surprised. It was less of the shrill discordant singing we had briefly seen at the MidAutumn Festival in Hong Kong and lots of acrobatics. The story was a of a monkey king who went to the sea kingdom to find a new weapon and the dancing and acrobatics were amazing! We also got to play dress up and try some of the Chinese Yo-yos. It was hard!

We stayed next to Taipei 101, currently the world’s tallest building (508 meters and 101 floors)– conveniently atop a trendy shopping mall. Lure them in and get them shopping! Taipei has a population of 2.5 million people and seems very western. The subway is incredibly easy to use and English is understood and spoken at a minimal level by most people. However, we didn’t see a lot of westerners, underscored by the fact that the children stared at us on the subway. There is the distinctly Asian side – one we uncovered in the Shilin Night Market. Food, food and more food! We sampled our way through.

What I enjoyed most was taking the train out of the city to Yingee where pottery shops abound. After viewing century old ceramics at the National Palace Museum we learned how more modern pottery was made in this century in Yingee at the local pottery museum. Yingee supplied Taipei with all its pottery needs from the time KMT set up shop until plastics took over the market. The town then reinvented itself into a little artisan community and we drifted in and out of shop after shop and admired glazes, and all sorts of plates, tea pots or anything that could possibly be made out of clay. Of course we supported the local community by buying a gift or two!